Youth suicide rates in CT nearly doubled in one year

1of7A memorial is setup on a telephone pole next to the area where a Bridgeport police officer Thomas Lattanzio committed suicide at Seaside Park in Bridgeport, on Dec. 5, 2017.
>> Click through to learn about suicide rates and stats in Connecticut and the U.S.Photo: Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media

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The suicide rate among young people in Connecticut nearly doubled in a single year, according to a Hearst Connecticut Media analysis.

Nationwide, suicide rates among 10- to 24-year-olds have increased, the Centers for Disease Control said last week. The suicide rates went from 6.8 for every 100,000 people in 2007 to 10.6 per 100,000 in 2017.

In 2017, suicide was the second leading cause of death for U.S. residents between the ages of 10 and 24, according to the CDC.

Youth suicide rates in Conencticut have fluctuated — 5.35 per 100,000 residents in 2000; 3.73 per 100,000 residents in 2003; 5.57 in 2010; and 4.34 in 2016 — though the rate nearly doubled in 2017 from the previous year.

The state medical examiner reported 58 suicides among residents aged 10-24 in 2017, a rate of 8.13 for every 100,000 people. In 2016, there were 31 youth suicides reported, and a rate of 4.32 per 100,000.

As for why the suicide rates among young people have increased nationwide, the CDC said on its blog that “depression and other mental health disorders have been shown to be increasing in youth,” though Jonathan Singer said “Nobody knows why.”

Singer, president of the American Association of Suicideology and author of the book “Suicide in Schools: A practitioner’s guide,” said “the trend over time is that there’s ups and downs.”

“We do want it to go down and stay down but because we don’t know why it goes up and why it goes down, it’s hard to address it on a national level,” he said.

Valarie Lepoutre, the young adult program coordinator for NAMI, said the opioid crisis could be a factor.

“Some of the concerns could be from the opioid epidemic,” she said. “A lot of people may have accidentally overdosed or it could be intentional.”

She also said social media — the impulse to compare yourself to others on Facebook or Snapchat — could be having a deleterious effect on the psyche.

“There’s so much pressure to try and be perfect,” she said.

The state also saw a large jump in the suicide rates among men aged 50-59. That rate has fluctuated, but it has increased more steadily than the rate among young people.

The low point was 2001, when the suicide rate among men aged 50-59 was 4.93 per 100,000 residents. In 2017, the rate was 10.09, a decrease from the 2013 high of 11.21 per 100,000.

In 2013, 81 Connecticut men between the ages of 50 and 59 committed suicide, according to data from the medical examiner.

According to Singer, “Economic hardship is correlated with adult suicide risk.” He said suicide rates among older men began to go up around 2008, during the last economic recession.

But Singer said there is also an often overlooked emotional component.

“There is an experience of loneliness,” he said. “As a society we have encouraged men to spend less time on interpersonal relationships and community building and more time on being professionally successful.”

Jordan Fenster is an award-winning reporter, podcaster and children's book author. He serves as digital products editor at Hearst Connecticut Media and lives in Weston with his dog, cat and three daughters.